isplayed here at the Chemical Industries Exposition in New York in 1949, the Alcometer was the first portable breath-testing device that gave law enforcement an objective test for determining intoxication — a problem deemed so dire that Henry Ford once threatened to stop making cars if the country ever repealed prohibition. Although versions of the Alcometer survive today, in 1954 an Indiana University professor invented the Breathalyzer, which became a generic term for many similar products that sniff the besotted breath of the more than 1 million U.S. motorists arrested annually for driving under the influence.
isplayed here at the Chemical Industries Exposition in New York in 1949, the Alcometer was the first portable breath-testing device that gave law enforcement an objective test for determining intoxication — a problem deemed so dire that Henry Ford once threatened to stop making cars if the country ever repealed prohibition. Although versions of the Alcometer survive today, in 1954 an Indiana University professor invented the Breathalyzer, which became a generic term for many similar products that sniff the besotted breath of the more than 1 million U.S. motorists arrested annually for driving under the influence.